


Prom Night

by Mansaeboysbe



Category: K-pop, SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, a lil angst, school au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2019-07-24 10:35:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16173341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mansaeboysbe/pseuds/Mansaeboysbe
Summary: You’d never planned on going, but Joshua intends on proving you wrong about prom





	Prom Night

**Author's Note:**

> -Admin Bee

“No.”

Joshua visibly deflates for a moment and you can’t help but feel slightly bad. He hadn’t put in a huge effort into asking you, you’d never been comfortable with extravagant, public displays like some of the other girls in school got: banners, bouquets, and everything in between. One guy even went to the length of handing out flyers with individual letters to ask his girlfriend during lunch. But you? The idea of all the attention on you was enough to make your skin crawl.

So when Joshua shows up at your front door before school, a box of donuts in his hand and the classic pun of “Dough you want to go to prom with me?” you have to give him credit for his consideration. The only problem was-

“I’m sorry, Josh, that was really sweet of you though.”

He bites down on his bottom lip in thought, nodding a little and slowly closing the lid to the donut box, “Erm, we can just go as friends, I wasn’t asking if…” He trails off and you lean into the doorway, your backpack still resting in its place against the frame.

“No, no, it’s not that it’s just… I don’t really want to go to prom.” Joshua takes a step back to let you out of the door so you can start walking to school, patiently waiting for you to continue after locking the door, “It’s kind of too much, you know? All the stress of dresses and hair and having to compare yourself to other people in their dresses, I’d rather just not have to deal with it.”

“It doesn’t have to be super stressful, though,” despite your rejection, Joshua opens the box again and offers you one of the pastries. After some hesitation, you decide to take one, “It would just be me.”

“That’s the problem,” goes through your mind but you swallow it back with a bite of the sugar and dough.

“Please?” Joshua stops walking and you turn back to look from your place a few paces in front of him, “I won’t force you to go, but you deserve a good night and I want to try my best to make it that. You’re the only person I’d want to go with.”

It takes some consideration, but his gentle smile and soft-spoken promise cave you in. Besides, what could go wrong if you were going with Joshua?

Apparently, so much. Prom was nothing more than a school dance but your family makes it seem like you’re about to be married off and never heard from again.

“Honey, don’t pick at your nail polish,” your mother chides. With a sigh, you lower your hands and put your gaze over to where she’s scrolling through Pinterest for hairstyles on her phone. Prom is in twelve hours but you’re already at the salon, waiting in the uncomfortable polyester chair that serves as your prison for the next two hours. She holds her phone out to you a few times to get your opinion on a hairstyle, buns and braids and always something curled at the bottom. She finally gives up on pulling vocalized comments from you and settles for your indifferent shrugs and grunts. You hardly register the hairstylist coming by and seeing what your mom’s picked out, not when the hammering in your chest is only growing stronger with each passing minute.

A chiming from your phone catches your attention and when you look down, its Josh replying to your indirect plea for help.

[10:30] Come save me from the salon

[10:45] This early?? Are they giving you a whole new face?

[10:45] I wish

The text bubbles appear almost immediately and you can already hear Joshua’s tone of voice.

[10:45] Hey, dont say that

[10:46] Youre going to look beautiful as always with the face you have now

[10:48] Josh :( its my prom day let me be deprecating

[10:48} Its my prom day too and Im not gonna let you

The woman pulls on a piece of your hair a little too hard and you have to put the phone down, raising your eyes to cautiously look up into the mirror. The moment is gone when you look down at your hands again, but you’re only slightly surprised to see a light dusting of pink over your cheeks in the reflection.

Two and a half painstaking hours later, you’re released from the salon and back out into the real world. Your mother suggests getting lunch but you feel far too fancy to go anywhere in broad daylight at the moment. When you get home, there are more messages from Joshua.

[12:27] I know you said you didnt want any

[12:27] But I got flowers

[12:27] And I was going to leave them to be a surprise

[12:27] But theyre really really gorgeous

[12:28] And I know youre still probably not thrilled to be going tonight but Im really excited and I meant it when I said I want this to be special

[12:28] So yeah

[12:28] See you in a few hours

The day drags on until the dance, but you manage to pass the time by binge-watching Netflix and reminding yourself not to touch the foundation on your face. When it’s finally time to get into your dress and put on heels, your mother appears again in the way she’s really good at, suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere. She helps you into the dress, zipping up the back and sealing you in for the night. The doorbell rings as your cinching on your shoes and she rushes off to let Joshua in. You carefully, as to not make any rips, take a seat on the bed and sigh, trying once again to push down the anxiety bubbling in your throat.

A moment later there’s a soft knock on the door, and you look up to see Joshua in the doorway. He’s dressed in the red suit that matches your dress, and even though you had concerns about it (“Red, Joshua? Really?” - “Yeah! Who wants to go in boring black like everyone else?”) you have to admit, he makes it work. His hair is pushed off of his forehead so now it’s easier to see the look of concern in his eyes.

He comes over and sits in your desk chair across from you, “Is everything ok?”

“Yeah!” you juxtapose with shaking your head, “We should probably get downstairs and go, huh?”

He smiles, but it’s not condescending like you’d expect from everyone else. No, Joshua has never been anything but sweet, and kind, and considerate and it’s at this that you feel yourself tear up slightly. He’s up in an instant, rushing forward to hold your face in your hands as you sniff, all too aware that your mom would have a fit if your mascara started running.

“I’m sorry,” you whimper, “you probably should have gone to prom with someone else, I’ve just been complaining this entire time, and I know you’re really excited and I’m sorry that I haven’t been,” sniff, “and-and you shouldn’t have spent all this time-“

He cuts you off by bringing his lips down to meet yours, softly swiping his thumbs across your cheeks to catch the drops before they fall. He doesn’t go far when he pulls back, only enough to rest his forehead against your own.

“I wouldn’t want to go with anyone else but you, and I know you don’t think that it’s true, but I need you to believe me when I say that.”

“I’m-I’m sorry…” you sniff again and he nudges his nose forward to softly bump yours.

“I know.” You stay pressed close together until you feel your heartbeat even out again, the stress and fear you were feeling before ebbing away slightly with each steady breath you matched with Joshua’s. You still felt anxious, that was a given at this point, but having Joshua there helped. He coaxed you downstairs with his hand held tightly onto yours, giving you something to anchor yourself to. At your mother’s instance, you took pictures together, but Joshua tried to make you feel as comfortable as possible. You tried your best too, focusing on the positives of everything: almost being done with school, getting to spend the night with him, seeing your friends and how they got to get dressed up for a rare night of all of your lives. As Joshua slipped the corsage onto your wrist, red roses with black embellishments adorning the petals, you felt a little relief that he had been stubborn in his insistence on buying them.

Dinner was easy, Joshua took you to get soup from your shared favorite restaurant and it felt like you were hanging out together, just in fancier clothing. But when it came time for the dance-

“Hey,” you look up to see Joshua leaning his shoulder against the brick wall that was supporting you, “I’ve been looking for you, why’d you run off?”

“It got stuffy in there,” which was half true. The dark gym was packed with your classmates, moving in every direction to whatever music was being blasted through the speakers, the bass too loud to hear the lyrics at all. Combined with the heat of the room and everything else, it got to be too much quickly. So without much thought, you had escaped the gym at the first sign of a break in the crowd, unable to hear Joshua calling out to you over the noise. You found yourself leaning up against the brick wall of the building outside, attempting to take deep breaths of air while also shaking and feeling like you were drowning all at once. This was how Joshua found you after making it outside as well.

He comes over to stand beside you, back to the brick as well. After a moment of silence, aside from the music drifting from the open door of the gym, Joshua speaks up again.

“Our classmates are crazy,” you smile a little at his statement, “I’ve never seen these many people grinding on each other outside of a club setting.”

“It’s the repressed emotions being released,” you add, “we’re all so strung out from finals, its a hormone free for all in there.”

Joshua scoots over until his shoulder slightly brushes yours, “it’s better out here anyway.”

You shrug, not entirely agreeing but settling anyway, too tired to disagree. The music in the gym changes from a Top 40 Hit to something softer and more melodic, and you feel Joshua shift beside you. When you turn your head, he’s facing you again with a small smile and his hand held out.

“May I have this dance?”

Maybe under a different circumstance, you would have declined. And yet, you take his hand with a smile of your own, letting him pull you closer with an arm around your waist, yours going up to rest on his shoulder. Joshua softly sings along to the lyrics as you sway, your cheek coming to rest against his chest. Out here, away from the loud music and everyone else, it felt like you were in your own world. It was comforting to know that Joshua was the one there with you.

The song comes to an end far to soon, but Joshua doesn’t immediately step back. Instead, he brings his arms up around you, pulling you in for a hug. When you turn your head to look up at him, he simply smiles again and bends to press a kiss to your forehead.

“Thanks.”

“For what?” He asks, bringing a hand up to move a stray piece of hair away from your face.

“For bringing me. And for making me go in the first place. And for coming to find me even though I abandoned you in there.”

“I wasn’t just going to let you go,” he chuckles.

You bury your face into his suit jacket to hide the enamored smile that threatens to appear. “You know what I mean,” you mumble.

He hums and tightens his hold around you, “Do you wanna go get cheesecake?”

“Yes, one hundred percent yes.”

You end the night sitting across from each other in a local cafe, one corsage, two slices of cheesecake, and your hands intertwined on the table. And you wouldn’t have it any other way.


End file.
